WEBVTT

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[Music]

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I'm John Guthrie.

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I am a professor of
human development

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in the University of Maryland.

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It's key to help children
build a sense of confidence

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in reading, and the way
teachers do build confidence is

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by enabling students
to succeed in the tasks

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that they face every day.

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The first absolutely
crucial element

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in helping the students
build confidence is

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to have easy texts: texts
they can handle or words

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that they can read or
tasks, like phonics tasks,

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that they can do successfully.

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Many kids are faced with
books that are too hard,

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tasks that are marginally
beyond them.

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And so a good teacher who is
building confidence is starting

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with competence, being sure
the students are very securely

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grounded in tasks they can do,
books they can read well enough

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to enjoy to develop an interest.

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And then their competency
will build,

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and their confidence will
build, as they get bigger tasks.

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So easy texts is key
point number one.

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Key point number two:
praise children's success.

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Kids will succeed if you get
the right texts for them,

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and they love to hear that
they're doing it well,

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and they can almost
not hear it enough.

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And praise is best when
it's very specific: "Susie,

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that was an outstanding
sentence that you just read

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out loud for all of us."

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That's the kind of thing
children can benefit from.

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And so praise is
especially valuable.

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Also, helping children set
their own goals in reading.

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A child might be good
at reading a page

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but might stop after that page.

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So you might help the
child; say, "All right,

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what is your goal for tomorrow?

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You already know how
to read one page.

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Can we go to two
pages for tomorrow?"

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Beyond the choice
of one book to read,

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there are many other choices
teachers can learn how to give.

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For example, which part of
the book do you want to read?

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Maybe all children in the
classroom are expected

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to read the same book at a
given time in the curriculum.

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Does that mean the teacher
can give no choices?

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Not at all.

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So they can have many choices.

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Some kids in kindergarten
like to read to an animal,

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or read to a friend, or pretend
to have an animal to read to.

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And so they can choose
who they want to read to.

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Many of these choices teachers
can bring into the experience

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that a student has every day.

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Good teachers are giving
five choices every lesson;

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not just once a day, but every
lesson five choices brings the

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student's interests, the
student's competencies,

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the student's self
into the lesson.

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A motivating environment helps
young children in the K-3 period

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to discover that reading
can help them pursue

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their interests.

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Even young children, age two
or three, have interests.

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Some children like
fantasy stories;

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other children like butterflies.

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And when children realize that
you can read about a butterfly

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or you can read about a
fantasy as well as hear a story

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about make-believe,
they become intrigued.

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So they are able to expand
their interests through books.

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Teachers can motivate
students in the classroom

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by giving them chances to
be social in their reading,

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and many little opportunities
for collaboration can come

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up every day and every lesson.

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So teachers can support
motivation

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by helping kids collaborate
as partners.

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For example, a teacher might
say, "Read the first half

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of the story with your
partner; read it together.

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After you read it, tell your
partner what you think the most

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exciting part of the first
half of the story was."

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So this is a collaborative
activity,

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very simple, it can
happen daily.

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And there is a range
of other collaborations

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that teachers can get started
without too much complexity.

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Help the students make
connections in their reading.

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We teach thematic units.

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So there might be a
thematic unit of survival

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in the wilderness, and
how do animals survive,

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how do plants survive,
and how do humans survive

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in the wilderness?

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And students can read about
this for six weeks or 12 weeks.

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They can read stories;
they can read poems;

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they can read biology
about plants and animals.

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And when they do this
integrated multi-genre reading,

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they are able to connect.

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We had a classroom of
children in the lower grades

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that had worked in a 12-week
concept during a reading

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instruction unit.

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This group of 12 students,
in the last week of school,

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set up a lending library.

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They went home and read
these books to their siblings

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and came back and told the story

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about how their siblings liked
what they were able to explain

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to them, what they were
able to read to them.

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And so this class
formed their own library

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of reading these books long

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after formal instruction had
really ended in the school.

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And this is engaged reading.

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Those kids have become
engaged readers.

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[Music]